


The Sacred Band of Thebes

by HollyHop



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: First Time, M/M, Prompt Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-30
Updated: 2013-10-30
Packaged: 2017-12-31 00:04:38
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 17,013
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1024965
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HollyHop/pseuds/HollyHop
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There is a new picture framed up on the wall at 221B. John investigates into its history and discovers some surprising things about Sherlock. Sherlock on the other hand is bored. John urges Lestrade to find them a case, any case. Something about it washes memories of the war to the shore. Warning: Johnlock. You have been warned.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Boredom in Rome

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I am not Doyle, Gatiss or Moffat, sadly. I do not own these characters. I just dress them up pretty and then undress them again. I make no money out of this, unless making someone read this and think "Neat!" can be printed into coins.

The Sacred Band of Thebes

 

  _“And if there were only some way of contriving that a state or an army should be made up of_ _lovers and their beloved, they would be the very best governors of their own city, abstaining from all dishonour, and emulating one another in honour; and when fighting at each other's side, although a mere handful, they would overcome the world._

_For what lover would not choose rather to be seen by all mankind than by his beloved, either when abandoning his post or throwing away his arms? He would be ready to die a thousand deaths rather than endure this. Or who would desert his beloved or fail him in the hour of danger?”_

 

(Source: Plato “The Symposium”)   

 

Chapter One

 

Boredom in Rome

 

“What’s that then?” John was peering closely at one of the pictures framed up on the wall. When they’d moved in to 221B, almost another lifetime ago, it had been clear from the very beginning that their combined living space was actually Sherlock’s and John would have to restrict himself and his belongings to the upstairs room. He didn’t mind. Having been a soldier, John was used to this and had taken their silent arrangement for granted. Over the years every shelf, every surface and every cupboard had become cluttered up with Sherlock’s collections of insect specimen, files of famous cases, notes on his own work, books about pathology and psychology and every other topic that piqued his interest.

 

This picture however was new. John had never seen it before. Sherlock must have put it up after his return, although from the style of the photograph and the colouring it was an old postcard, at least twenty years at John’s guess.

 

“It’s the Pantheon.” Sherlock’s voice was utterly bored.

 

“Yes, thank you, I can see that.” John’s hackles immediately rose. They had been hanging around the house for several days now with nothing much to do. The weather outside was abysmal and apart from a few irregular visits to the pub with Mike and Greg, John had been spending all of his time with Sherlock and that was something that would chafe on anyone’s nerves eventually.

 

“I meant,” he continued, “where did it come from and why is it here now? I’ve never seen it before.”

 

Sherlock sighed agressively at the unwelcome intrusion into his self-induced state of angry melancholy.

 

“I found it while tidying up some of my stuff and thought it would look nice on the wall. Incidentally, it covers the spot where I smashed that Kazhak assassin’s head in.” Sherlock’s voice was still flat, despite the gruesome recollection. He’d been in a foul mood all week and since there was no one else to take it out on, John had had to bear the full brunt of it. Two days ago, he’d secretly called Lestrade begging him for a case, because if there wasn’t one soon, it would be himself up in court for throttling a famous detective to the death in their living room. Or fuck him into submission. He wasn’t sure which.

 

John’s eyes lingered for a few more seconds upon the dome of the antique building. He remembered the feeling of awe he’d experienced, when he had once visited it during a holiday in Italy with his parents when he was seventeen. The slightly hollow echo of voices inside the church. Different languages swirling into one underneath the arched roof. The sunlight flooding in through its round opening. It had been blessedly cool inside the building, as opposed to the relentless Italian summer sun burning his fair skin outside. Not that he had been particularly interested in the building itself. He would much rather have gone to some beach on the coast of the mediterranean, but his parents insisted on seeing the sights first and then driving up to their small holiday flat in San Remo. So they had traipsed around the Forum Romanum for two hours in the burning sun, visited the Colosseum and even the Vatican, without being particularly religious. Apparently it was just something one did, when one was in Rome.

 

John had never quite understood his parents’ secret urge to be more upper class than they actually were. For him, being sturdy middle class was fine. He wanted to become a doctor and nowadays being middle class wasn’t considered a hindrance anymore. Although he sometimes noticed his teacher’s shooting him pitiful glances, as if to say

 

‘You’re going to be up against some pretty nasty prejudice, with your father being a simple post office clerk and your mother working part-time as a secretary.’

 

But he didn’t care, had never cared. He knew he was strong-willed and enjoyed a challenge. John’s eyes returned from his past inside the postcard to the present. He shot a quick glance back at Sherlock, who was still lying immobile on the couch, hands folded over his belly, eyes closed, trying no doubt to busy his mind and ward off the terrible urges that sometimes came with boredom.

 

John knew that living with Sherlock was a daily challenge and he enjoyed it. As much as he was annoyed by his flatmate’s constant need for attention and praise and his utter disregard for other people’s feelings, John knew that he craved the irritation this produced in him. He could never quite admit it, but he needed the adventure, the danger, the unpredictability of their life together. Sherlock was like a pebble in his shoe he never wanted to get rid of.    

 

He shook his head at the thought. John knew that people thought he was slightly masochistic, putting up with the unbearable rudeness that was Sherlock Holmes, but he had never quite seen it like that. Sherlock had been rude to others, yes, but towards him the rudeness had always lacked an edge. As if Sherlock was trying to stab him repeatedly with a wooden dagger. Or maybe John’s armour had just been stronger than other people’s.

 

His eyes were still fixed upon the supine figure on the couch. Taking in the blue dressing gown trailing on the floor, the crumpled pyjama bottoms and the t-shirt Sherlock had put on back to front and inside out today, not caring a damn about his appearance. John stopped himself from smirking. Perfectly dressed and groomed Sherlock was only available during cases. Otherwise he slouched around the flat like a sulky child, unwilling to get properly dressed or showered. One more thing that fascinated John about this man. His eyes lingered longer than strictly necessary upon the lithe body until he caught himself. He turned and went into the kitchen to make himself a cup of tea, unaware of Sherlock opening his eyes and shooting a quizzical look at his retreating back.

 

A few hours later, John receives a text from Lestrade, letting him know that he managed to come up with something. The Detective Inspector had complied with John’s bidding and had wheedled a case out of DI Saunders, who owed him a favour. Nothing mysterious. A simple hit and run in a 24-hour newsagents, where the owner had apparently surprised the gangsters halfway through and had been shot in the proceedings. CCTV coverage provided them with a fuzzy image of two men in black balaclavas and oversized coats. They had entered the small store with guns at the ready, pointing one at the cashier and one around the shop to check for any other customers. The two men were clearly not doing this for the first time, being identically dressed and almost indistinguishable by height and built. That is, DI Saunders and Lestrade had thought they were, until Sherlock pointed out that one of them was a woman.

 

“How can you know that?” Lestrade sounded slightly annoyed, although he was familiar with Sherlock’s brilliance. Sometimes he still feared that Sherlock was just making all this stuff up to impress him. Then again Sherlock had never tried to impress him in particular. Something Lestrade still regretted in the lonely hours, when his wife was at one of her pottery or tango classes, from which she would inevitably return much later than necessary, claiming they’d all gone for a drink afterwards.

 

He’d never dared to call her up on the fact that she never seemed to bring home any pottery pieces and, to his knowledge, couldn’t dance a single tango step to this day. Whenever he plucked up the courage to ask her about how things were going with the tango, she’d laugh him off and tell him that she’d given up dancing long ago and she’d surely told him. No, it was water colour painting she did now or Ikebana or whatever. She came up with a different excuse ever time. A book club was the latest fad, although he quietly suspected she was not reading Lady Chatterley’s Lover so much as re-enacting it.

 

And then this strange fascination with a brilliant but antisocial genius had taken over some space in his mind and had rendered him disinterested in her doings for quite a while until … well, until the night Sherlock had brought a short blond man claiming to be a doctor with him to one of the cases and suddenly he’d known. The detective would never care about him. Not in the way he had been hoping for. And maybe he was relieved, because as much as the possibility of him being interested in another man had intrigued him for a while, he wasn’t sure he’d have had the guts to go through with it, if Sherlock had indeed matched his interest.

 

At first he’d been surprised to see the solitary man accompanied by someone else. Someone he’d never even seen or heard Sherlock talk about before, but when the case was solved and he had inconspicuously watched the two standing at the police tape, talking to each other, walking side by side, laughing, he’d known. So this was what Sherlock looked like when he cared. And just like that the chapter had been closed for him.       

 

Years later, Lestrade still worried about Sherlock’s well-being however and therefore had dug around in the other departments at the Met, trying to find someone to hand him an unsolved case. Something, anything that would keep Sherlock’s mind busy and off the drugs. Finally, DI Saunders from downstairs threw him a bone and handed him a dog-eared file and a CD-Rom that contained what they were looking at now.

 

They’d already watched the CCTV recordings of the hold-up four times and everyone was getting quite bored with it, until Sherlock pressed the pause button and pointed one of his long fingers at the screen.

 

“There. That’s not a man, that’s a woman” Lestrade, John and DI Saunders leaned closer, trying to figure out, what Sherlock was pointing at. Both figures were identically dressed in full black masks, oversized parkas, blue jeans and hiking boots. There wasn’t much of a height difference either and the movements of neither hinted at either gender. John was the one to speak first, his finger pointing at the head of one of the black and white figures.

 

“He – sorry, she – has got something glittery on the side of her mask.”

Sherlock’s eyes gleamed with pride for a split second, before his face slipped back into deduction mode.

 

“Not on it – under it.” 

 

Sherlock rolled the tape forward in slowmotion. The footage was fuzzy, but leaning closer the others saw it too. The balaclava was stretching taught over her head and every once in a while during the hold-up there was a glimmer underneath her left ear.

 

“It’s an earring.” John was leaning almost on top of Sherlock to get a good look at the small screen in front of them, his chest brushing Sherlock’s shoulder. When he realised how close he was leaning in, he pulled away rather too quickly, making the others throw him a questioning glance. Sherlock apparently hadn’t noticed his hastened departure from his side and simply went on.

 

“Probably one of these dangly metal earrings imitating fishscales or a bird’s wing.”

 

“Okay, good. So one of them is a woman.” DI Saunders sounded less than impressed. “What now? Does that help us in any way?”

 

Lestrade threw him a cautioning glance and then tried to gloss the moment over.

 

“Well, at least now we know we have to look for a man and a woman. That’s something.”

 

“Oh, I think we have a little more thant that.” Sherlock swivelled around in his chair and looked at each of the others in turn, finally speaking directly to John’s eyes that were once more reflecting the spark of Sherlock’s brilliance.

 

“The way she holds the gun. She knows her way around it. I’d say she’s had training. Professional training. Military. Both of them. The way they both move. That’s soldierly. They cover the door and the cash desk respectively. The guns. They’re not standard issue either. They’re British Forces. How come you didn’t notice that?” He didn’t even glance at Lestrade and Saunders when throwing in the insult and quickly went on.

 

“Their eyes are on the cameras but they look like they don’t care. They are covering each other’s backs. This is not their first bust. She’s not tall but strong. Athletic. They don’t say anything. Everything is done by movement alone. Throwing the bag at the cashier. They hold their guns steady at all times, no wiggling or shaking about. They even stay calm, when the shop owner comes in from the back. The shot is well-placed. A little too much so, making me think that they might have known he’d be there. Will look into that. Then, they take the cash. It’s too little to warrant this kind of weaponry and the shooting. So this wasn’t about the money only. This is something more. I don’t know what. Yet. Come on John. I have to talk to some people.”

 

And with this he got up and swept past everyone and out of the room. John was still frozen to the spot, his eyes on the monitor, but when he realised Sherlock had left, he sprang into action. He gave a short nod to the two Inspectors and then hurried after Sherlock. Lestrade and Saunders where left behind looking a bit bewildered, until Lestrade shook his head.

 

“He’s brilliant, you know. Just a bit … weird.”

 

“I believe you.” They exchanged another look and Lestrade took a deep breath. Sherlock was just very hard to stomach sometimes. And every time he thought he’d gotten used to the inhospitable behaviour and downright rudeness, Sherlock did or said something and he realised that he hadn’t and probably never would. He regularly wondered how John managed to put up with him.

 

“So,” DI Saunders went on, pointing a thumb over his shoulder at the door Sherlock and John had just left through. “Are they shagging or what?”

 

Lestrade was slightly taken aback by the crude wording of the question. But then he shrugged his shoulders.

 

“Do I look like I really want to know?” And he strode out of the room, hands buried in his trouser pockets. 


	2. Open wounds

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sherlock and John go down to Sandhurst to investigate into the hold-up at a 24-hour newsagents with British Forces weapons. On their journey Sherlock finds out something other than he had expected.

 

Chapter 2

 

Open wounds

 

At this particular moment, John was quite happy to put up with anything Sherlock threw at him, because they were on the scent. Once outside the Yard, they squeezed into a cab and Sherlock asked the driver to take them to Charing Cross.

“Where are we going?” John knew Sherlock hated to divulge information to anyone during a case, being aware of the fact that his deductions were much more impressive when they came without prior knowledge or warning. But John had become an integral part of Sherlock’s work and therefore part of the deduction process. Same as before at the Yard, Sherlock liked John to voice his deductions for him, thereby making him feel like he was part of the magic.

“Sandhurst.” Sherlock was still staring out of the window. John nodded his head, as if this made perfect sense. The rest of the short drive was spent in silence. They caught the next train down to Berkshire, trying not to mind the one and a half hours they would have to kill, while rattling through the beautiful countryside just outside London.

“John.” Sherlock woke from his reverie ten minutes after they’d left the station. “You never went to Sandhurst, did you?” His piercing eyes were on John’s, who felt distinctly see-through under this gaze. He shifted uncomfortably.

“No. I went up to Catterick for initial training and then we were carted off to the RRF in Durham for the first few months, before I was assigned to the Afghanistan campaign. Never went back afterwards.” The last sentence was added rather as an afterthought. Sherlock had never asked about his time in the army and the time after his return from the war and John didn’t like to think about it. It was a dark and desperate time. Even more so than he had been able to admit to anyone. Not his family, not his therapist. Not even himself.

He looked out the window but saw nothing. His gaze instead, went deep into himself and the memories of his time in the army. He’d never been a particular friend of weapons and suchlike, seeing their usefulness in certain situation but generally despising their destructive powers. Of course, as a doctor he wanted to save people’s lives, not take them. He sighed and his eyes went back to Sherlock who returned his gaze stoically, knowing instinctively what John was thinking about.

“What happened, John?” Four and a half years. Four and a half years they’d been fighting side by side, fighting each other, laughing, solving crimes, lost three years, when Sherlock had been gone from John’s life but had never truly left, teasing, saving and cursing each other. And not once had Sherlock asked about his time in Afghanistan.

John was caught by the sheer force of those three words, spoken so gently. Almost timidly. His mouth was dry. Sherlock hardly ever cared about anyone but himself and so far John hadn’t had a reason to fool himself into thinking that maybe, just maybe, Sherlock cared more for him than for the nameless masses out there that formed their world. True, they had become closer since Sherlock’s return, with John being even more anxious about his friend’s well-being than before, but so far Sherlock had kept mum about his own feelings. Or maybe he didn’t have any. This thought stabbed into John like a serrated blade, cutting him open once more. He drew in a painful breath.

“Not much to tell, really.” Yes there was, there were pages upon pages, books, encyclopaedias. There were epic poems to recite and songs to sing. Songs of glory and woe. But John had never told anyone, not the whole story. Not even his therapist knew.

“We arrived in a desert stretch of a relatively unknown part of the world. Oh, we had been briefed, of course, maps shown, climates explained. Procedures and rules. Regulations carefully mapped out. But in the end when we got there we knew nothing. I don’t think you can ever prepare yourself for a warzone. I don’t even think you can prepare for Afghanistan in peaceful times. It’s so different. Dust roads, huts, towns filled with kaftans, shawls, burkas, women made up of eyes only. Men with guns, rifles. Manual, automatic, anything that’ll shoot. And if not to shoot, then to be used as a club.

We rattled thought the streets, if you can call them streets, in the back of an army lorry. All we saw, were flat stretches of dust and dirt, roads a bit less bumpy than the surrounding flat expanses, but only barely. We set up camp just north of Kandahar. The rebel troops were not much further to the northwest. We knew that much. What we didn’t know was that waiting for a war to start is worse than being in it. We waited day after day after endless day. The heat during the day and the cold during the night wearing our nerves down to the bone. At first all we did was treat sunburn, snake bites, cuts from repairs on jeeps and weapons, athlete’s foot from the heat and too little hygiene. And the general depression, that comes with being stretched taught all the time and no release in sight. Our job was simply to be there, allowing the soldiers to mouth off, to unload on someone.”

At this, John’s gaze returned from the landscape outside the window to his own hands. Plenty of soldiers had made use of the chance to unload on him, but he himself had had no one to unload on. He’d had to be strong. Swallow down the clumps of loneliness that formed in his throat, the acid of fear that burned his lungs when he breathed and the gluey mass of boredom that clogged up his every pore. Being in a war had different rules to normal life. Some people grew stronger for it, some broke. It sometimes led to people doing things they wouldn’t normally do. John knew that if he went on with his story, he would have to divulge the biggest secret of his life. Something he’d never told anyone. But now … now he was ready to take a gamble. He knew Sherlock was capable of seeing through every ruse he might try to play. But this wouldn’t strictly speaking be a ruse, it would be a simple recollection of his time in Afghanistan and Sherlock had been the one to ask. Nothing unusual could be read into telling a story truthfully. Not even the intention of making someone aware of certain options that might have been denied to exist before now. John took another deep breath and then went on.

“I had been assigned an orderly by the name of Murray. He was younger than me, barely in his twenties but with proper emergency medic training. Unlike me, he had seen hands ripped off by motorbike accidents, stab wounds, gunshot wounds, drug victims lying strangely twisted in their own vomit. The works. I had come almost straight from uni and had heard but never seen the everyday cruelties of London’s back streets. He had also been in the army longer than me and knew his way around a gun much better. Often, after a hard days work, we would sit outside the hospital tent, having scrubbed everything squeeky clean for the next day, and would talk, have a beer, clean our weapons, just sit in silence.

Those nights were beautiful. You can really see the stars in the desert, you know. Thousands upon thousands. He was really the only other soldier I became friends with during my time over there. Some of the others I would talk to, some I would drink with, but none were important to me. Not like Murray.

One day a patrol was brought in. Five wounded soldiers. Sniper shootings. One was dead as we put him on the bed. Three critical, one slightly wounded. We worked fourteen hours straight to get everyone operated on, cleaned and dressed up. I don’t know how Murray did it. Even after this gruelling day, he would still make me laugh, sticking his disposables over his ears and pretending to be a seventies rock star, strumming the drip stand like a guitar. Of course I know now that it was his way of coping and I don’t know if it was entirely healthy but it kept me sane. Laughing about the whole thing, made it so much easier to bear at the time.”

Here John hesitated for the briefest of seconds before he went on.

“He took me to bed that night. I don’t know why it happened, all I know is that we were both in need of a bit of comfort and he was eager to give it. We tried to think about the war only in the little bits and pieces that we saw. Not the big picture. Never think about the thousands of Afghan families being torn asunder by our actions. We didn’t think about the damage that we did, just the help that we were able to give, the wounds we healed and the lives we saved. It helped. Suddenly this war was so far away. All that mattered were the lives of the soldiers and the odd Afghan policeman, guide or translator that we treated in our hospital tent And the nights we spent together. No matter how many wounded were brought in, car bombs, snipers, rebels just shooting at everything that moved, we worked as one. He made me stronger and I him.

Then we got orders to enter the battle at Maiwand. I don’t remember much of it. The noise was unbearable. Bombs, machine guns, planes overhead, helicopters. At least we knew the planes were ours, none of the terrorist troops had planes. But we never knew, whether the bombs would accidentally be dropped on our heads instead of theirs. I remember smoke in the air, something burning and then I remember a sharp bolt of lighting shooting through my chest. That’s all. Murray pulled me out of there. He dragged me out of the line of fire and then got a couple of the others to help him take me a few hundred yards back, away from the actual fighting, so that one of the helicopters could land and take me to the hospital in Kandahar. I was operated on immediately. When I woke up the next day, it was on the news. A British Forces vehicle had been torn to shreds by a landmine near Maiwand. I knew before they even showed the clip. I knew it was him. He’d gotten into the jeep trying to drive to Kandahar to …”

John stopped. The pain of it was still sharp in his chest. He didn’t know how long he’d spoken. Sherlock sat utterly still. There was no nod of acknowledgement, no sound. His eyes were fixed out of the window, following the slight drizzle that had started to fall. John knew that Sherlock had heard every word he’d spoken. He knew that looking out of the window didn’t mean he was disinterested. He knew that right now Sherlock couldn’t look at him, for fear of betraying his feelings on what he’d heard.

He knew, because he couldn’t look at his friend, either. He knew that he had just revealed something that wasn’t just a story of pain and war, but something of a love story as well, although he’d never called it that. He knew that his own feelings for Murray had been tender but not passionate. It hadn’t been love, just need and friendship in times of utter confusion. Two souls clinging to each other, tumbling through chaos. And yes, he had valued Murray’s devotion to him but he knew he hadn’t loved him.

His eyes were on his hands. Hands that used to be strong and calm, operating with meticulous care on countless wounded men and women. Afghans and British alike. Hands that had, at night, stroked the feverish skin of another man, as they swam through a sea of need together. Being each other’s anchor and wings at the same time. Murray’s dog-tags had been found amongst the charred remains of his twisted body, burned beyond recognition. Of course he had visited Murray’s parents afterwards.

One day, John had found himself standing in front of their door in Peterborough, taking a deep breath before ringing the bell. He had not told them about being their son’s lover. He had never told anyone. Until now. So why now? His eyes were on the rain, getting ever stronger as they got closer to Sandhurst like a bad omen. They sat in silence for the next twenty minutes. Each riding their own trains of thought.

When they arrived at the small train station in the heart of Berkshire, Sherlock was all business again. Their little heart-to-heart seemingly forgotten. He strode purposefully towards the next cab and they motored down to the gates of the royal military training facility. In John’s head the afternoon was a blur. They spoke to several officers, a lieutnant and a few soldiers. Questions were asked on weapons having gone missing lately, suspicious disappearances by any of their staff or soldiers gone AWOL.

Two hours later Sherlock was frustrated and bad-tempered again. Nothing out of the ordinary had occurred. No soldiers missing, no break-ins, nothing. Either everyone was keeping mum or there was nothing to tell. What now? The train ride back seemed endless and John fell asleep quickly, leaning against the window. He woke with a hand on his shoulder, shaking him gently and a voice in his ear.

“John.” His eyes cracked open slowly.

“John, we’re back home.” Sherlock was looking down on him with a gentleness that he had not seen before. John wiped a hand across his mouth, feeling spittle on his palm from sleeping open-mouthed and upright. He blushed slightly at the thought of Sherlock having seen him like this, but then he remembered the many instances in their flat when Sherlock had been walking around for days without showering or changing his clothes, stains of successful or failed experiments on his oversized t-shirt, falling asleep on the couch in nothing but his pyjama bottoms and dressing gown. John stopped there. Thinking about Sherlock in various states of undress had to be avoided at all costs.

John fell asleep again on the cabride home, but this time Sherlock simply called his name without touching him and he awoke with a start. They slowly made their way back up the stairs to their flat. John excused himself immediately, went up to his room and fell into bed barely managing to slip out of his jacket and toe his shoes off.

Despite being exhausted, he fell into an uneasy sleep, interrupted by recurring dreams of his time in Afghanistan. Murray swimming in and out of view. Barechested, wearing his combat uniform. Smiling at him with his eyes across the operating table. Running his sunburnt hands along his chest, exploring his body. John threw his head back in pleasure, wanting, needing Murray to tease him, taste him. But suddenly the hands weren’t Murray’s anymore.

The strong sturdy fingers had transformed into long slender pale ones that belonged to an entirely different set of hands. John’s eyes followed their progress along his body down to his groin, watching one of them wrapping itself around his erection and when his eyes settled back onto the face of the man sitting atop his legs, he no longer looked like Murray at all. John awoke with a gasp, trying to rid himself of the image he’d just conjured in his sleep.

Early morning light was filtering throught the curtains and John was lying on his bed tangled in his sheets, his jeans hanging half off his legs, as if he’d woken during the night and tried unsuccessfully to push them off, falling back asleep with the effort. He was hard. Not unusual for an early morning, but this time he knew the reason had been the dream and that was something he didn’t want to analyse too closely.

He tried to ignore his need and simply got up, opened the window, picked a towel from his cupboard and a fresh pair of pants, trying to think of something, anything, other than the dream he’d just had and especially not about the intense surge of lust he’d felt, when he’d looked up from the hands to an entirely different face than the one he had started with. Damn it, this was not going to make his problem go away. John sighed and sat back down on the edge of the bed. Better take care of it now , before he had to sit here all day and wait for his prick to calm down.

He flopped back into the crumpled sheets and then shifted himself a little ungainly back onto the bed, so that his legs weren’t hanging over the edge anymore. He lifted his hips slightly and slid off his pants, resigning himself again to scratching an itch that simply wouldn’t go away. On the contrary, everytime he scratched, the wound became more and more infected. Growing, filling with pus, festering and making him feel dirty and sick.

His hand had already found its way onto his aching erection, sliding gently across it at first, as if to confirm its existence. He avoided a gasp, paranoid about being heard. Then he started stroking it slowly but firmly. His brain running through picture after picture for him without being asked. Sherlock wearing a tight-fitting black shirt, sitting bolt upright at the kitchen table, examining something through his microscope. Sherlock in his dressing gown and pyjama bottoms, lying on the couch. Sherlock doubled over and panting hard next to him in some dark alley after a lengthy chase.

The gentle slope of his neck where it meets his shoulder and the soft skin that stretches down across his back. The lean muscles moving like chords underneath it. Eyes the colour of a stormy sea. Lips he desperately wanted to taste. A rare smile. That voice. Then new images that were only loosely tied to reality. Sherlock’s elegant hands on his own body, like two figure skaters dancing an intricate pattern on his skin. Those lips flushed from kissing and the lids half-closed with lust. It didn’t take long and John came without a sound, his mouth gaping wide open. A name hanging silently in the air that he would never dare to say.


	3. A love that dare speak its name

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After returning from their investigation John finds out something about Sherlock that opens a whole new range of options to him.

Chapter 3

A love that dare speak its name

“So, you’ve been to Italy then?” John tried to divert Sherlock’s mind away from their luckless investigation so far. His flatmate had returned to his usual position on the couch after coming home yesterday evening and from the looks of it, hadn’t gotten up since.

“What?” Sherlock’s eyes cracked open and he inclined his head slightly in the direction of John’s voice.

“The Pantheon? You’ve been?”

“What? Oh yes.” Sherlock waved his hand carelessly in the direction of the picture postcard framed on the wall.

“When?” John desperately wanted Sherlock to wake from this torpor he’d been wallowing in since yesterday. Their fruitless research in Sandhurst the other day and yesterday’s endless trek around all of London’s weapon dealers, legal and illegal, was hanging over him like a cloud.

“After uni.” Sherlock sat up. John tried not to give a relieved sigh at the movement, for fear of putting Sherlock off. He simply sat back in his chair and lifted his eyebrows at his friend, trying to encourage him to go on.

“The Grand Tour. The classic post-grad journey. France, Austria, Italy, Greece. Visiting the cradle of western civilisation. Byron did it and Keats. In fact most upper-class students did, after finishing their studies. Trying to get away from it all, I suppose. An “Educational rite of passage” they called it. Turin, Florence, Pisa, Padua, Bologna, Rome, then on to Greece. Trainloads of immature boys in search of art, culture and intellectual self-improvement. Nowadays, of course, it’s more of a lengthy spring break with lots of sex and booze. Then again, I suppose that’s what it always was – for some.” Sherlock was rapidly lighting up again, the fire back in his eyes.

“I had other things on mind, though, I wanted to understand about classical science, alchemical arts, the early mathematicians. Archimedes, Euclid, Pythagoras. I didn’t have a thought to spare for lying on the beach like some inane red-skinned lobster, flapping about, trying to impress half-naked Italian girls.” Sherlock waved a hand dismissively and then got up.

“I have to go out and check something. Don’t wait up.” And just like that he was off, slamming the door to his room. Five minutes later he was dressed and swept out of the appartment in a flurry of scarf, gloves and coattails.

John sat back in his chair, on the one hand glad that Sherlock was on fire again, returned from his moody depression and on the other hand slightly disappointed that he hadn’t been asked to come along. He got up from the armchair and went across to the postcard, still exuding an inexplicable magnetism. He took the frame off the wall, frowning at the darkened spot behind it, where Sherlock had knocked the Kazhak assassin unconscious. He opened the small metal fastenings on the back of the frame and took it apart. The postcard fell away from the glass and onto the floor. John bent to pick it up. There was something scrawled on the back of it. John studied it closer, but couldn’t make out the words. On closer inspection they turned out to be Italian. Of course. John shook his head, smiling at his own stupidity. He tried to make out the words with little hope of understanding them. But maybe he could get Google to translate them for him.

"Amore regge senza legge."

No signature. Just the four words. Well, amore seemed pretty clear. Unless John had missed out on something important amore meant love. But the rest of it was rather fuzzy. He put the frame down and took the postcard over to his laptop, which was sitting on the breakfast table by the window. Typing in the words, he wondered about what the message might say, if he managed to translate it at all. Someone had written these words on a postcard to Sherlock and more importantly, Sherlock had kept the postcard for all these years. Why? Out of sentiment? That was so unlike Sherlock. John pressed enter on his laptop and the English translation popped up on the screen.

Later that night John cannot recollect how long he’d been sitting there, stunned into paralysis. A minute, an hour, a lifetime. All he remembers is clearing his cache, deleting his browser history, putting the postcard carefully back into its frame, wiping his fingerprints off the glass and hanging the frame back on the wall. Long after midnight, he could hear Sherlock coming home from his investigation. John was still lying wide awake in his bed after he had showered, brushed his teeth, put on his pyjamas and tried to read. Four words filling his head in a repeat loop. “Love rules without laws.” He must have fallen asleep some time during the night, however, because he woke with a start at the knock on his door.

“John, five minutes. We need to go.” Sherlock’s steps retreated down the stairs, as John slumped back into his pillow, but forced himself back up immediately. He tried to push everything not immediately connected with the case at hand to the back of his head. If they were going to solve this case, then he would have to concentrate. He would have to put all his surfacing feelings towards Sherlock aside for now. He knew that as soon as this was over, he would have to make a decision on whether to let his feelings show or whether to struggle on as before. All he knew was that while he may have been unclear on his feelings towards Sherlock before, he now knew for certain that he was deeply in love with him and most likely had been for quite a while.

Sleepily stumbling around the room, trying to get into his pants without falling over, John tried to figure out how this had happened. It wasn’t as if he’d gotten up one morning and said to himself ‘Right, well, today I think I’m going to have a shower, get my tax return form filled in and then fall in love with my flatmate.’ He didn’t even remember thinking about it all that much until it had happened. Everytime someone around them had insinuated that they were a couple, he’d just brushed it off. Like lint. Just an annoying little piece of fluff on his jacket. Nothing to worry about. Over time, he hadn’t even bothered to brush it off anymore, he had just let it accumulate. And now … well now it seemed as if his entire jumper was made of the stuff. His entire life.

Ever since Sherlock’s return from the dead, he knew he’d been even more protective of his flatmate and friend than before the fall. Whenever someone dared to say something derogatory about Sherlock, John had reacted almost viciously. Sometimes he had surprised himself by the venom in his voice and no one had dared to insult Sherlock twice while he was around. Sometimes he thought he’d seen a flash of fire in Sherlock’s eyes whenever this happened, but as soon as he had met his friend’s eyes, they had already returned to their carefully constructed bland expression. How could he possibly crack open that shell? How could he find out if there was a fire inside?

It seemed to John to be a task akin to opening Pandora’s box. If he were to unleash Sherlock’s feelings, what would he inadvertantly set free? What evil’s lurked beneath that carefully controlled façade? And would he get more than he’d bargained for? More than he could handle? John didn’t really think he’d ever leave Sherlock’s side again but what if Sherlock pushed him away?

Fear had always been something John was good at keeping in check. During the war, he’d discovered his ability to push himself further and further, leaving his assumed boundaries behind. But this was a boundary he truly feared to overstep. Not the actual boundary of being with another man. He’d overstepped that a long time ago, but the boundary of endangering the one friendship in his life that meant everything to him. Sherlock had been his saviour, his beacon, guiding him from darkness back into the light. And he sometimes thought of himself as having done the same for Sherlock, guiding him away from the drugs and the boredom into a more socially compatible life. Making him aware of other people’s emotions and how he could profit from regarding them, rather than slicing through them with his vicous tongue.

“John!” Sherlock’s voice was impatient now and John hurried into his jeans and slipped his shoes on without tying the laces. He fumbled his way into his jacket on the way down the stairs.

“Yes, alright, I’m here, don’t go all white rabbit on me.” John almost fell into Sherlock, as he arrived at the bottom of the stairs and just caught himself in time. Sherlock was just standing there, putting on his gloves and giving him a scrutinizing look. But he didn’t say a word as they set off. Once inside the cab, John felt safe enough to ask about yesterday’s investigation.

“So, what’s new? Did you make any progress?” He deliberately looked Sherlock in the eye, making his face open and readable, putting all his strength into the message he was trying to portray. ‘I have nothing to hide’. He had no idea whether Sherlock bought it, but he had to be confident about his acting skills or Sherlock would dig his fingernails into any chink in his armour and pull him apart.

“I went down to the Yard again to have another look at the tapes. I noticed something else. The Asian cashier had extremely long fingernails on both his little fingers and I have a hunch concerning the earring that woman was wearing. Chinese men of a particular social standing want to show by growing out their fingernails, that they are rich enough not to have to do heavy physical labour. And I think the earring may have been an image of a chinese dragon. So I’m thinking that all three of them were Chinese. That might also have been the reason why the attackers didn’t talk. They didn’t want to be recognised by their accents.

Now the question is, why would a reasonably rich man from China work in a late night news agent? Oh, now this is where it gets interesting. He was placed there deliberately. It was a pick-up. They staged the whole thing as a hold-up but the cashier knew they were coming. He handed them the package together with the money. It had to be recorded on CCTV as an assault, so that no one would suspect the cashier to be in on the job. Now, what could they have been transferring? Drugs? No, package too small. Laundered money? Wouldn’t have been worth the trouble for the small amount they took. Diamonds? Possible, but the small bags might still have been visible inbetween the notes. So I’m thinking microchips. They can easily be attached to the notes and handed out with the loot undetected. As to what’s on them I have no idea.”

“Sounds a bit over the top to me, for exchanging a few microchips, if that’s what they were.”

Sherlock looked at him approvingly.

“Exactly.”

And with that they arrived in front of a dingy little two-up-two-down somewhere in Clapham.


	4. Chinese whiskers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The investigation gets underway and so do John's feelings for his enticing flatmate.

Chapter 4

Chinese whiskers

Sherlock paid the cab driver and then turned to face the small building in the pale early-morning light. He took a deep breath, as if intending to take a thirty foot dive into a swimming pool.

“What’s this place?” John looked the shabby house up and down. It wasn’t particularly well kept, but neither did it seem like a hideout for the Chinese mafia.

“Oh, this is nothing much.” Sherlock went up the short path to the front door and knocked. His eyes went back to John, who had followed him, intrigued. There was a small smirk on Sherlock’s face. An expression he only wore, when he was close to solving a case. John had seen it many times. As they stood on either side of the door, waiting for it to be answered, their eyes met again, but this time without incentive. John knew why he had allowed his eyes to stray but since Sherlock didn’t say anything but simply held the gaze, John was again filled with the idea – the hopeless dream – that maybe Sherlock somehow shared his feelings. A red hot flash went through John’s chest at the thought, not unlike the gunshot wound he had sustained years ago. But this time the result was more pleasurable. There was something there. John felt almost sure of it. Sherlock’s eyes were hiding something. They were almost opaque with concealment and John looked away from the sheer tension of hope for Sherlock’s mask to slip and fear at misreading the signs.

Then there were shuffling footsteps in the hallway and the door opened just a crack. A petite heartshaped face framed by black hair peered suspiciously through the gap.

“Ah, Mrs. Ellsworth? Sherlock Holmes. We are with the police,” Sherlock held up Lestrade’s old police badge, a photograph of his own face artfully inserted into the plastic covering, “investigating the hold-up at your husband’s news agents? This is Dr. John Watson, my associate. I would like to ask you a few more questions. May we come in.” And despite the lack of an invitation, Sherlock pushed at the door and let himself into the sparsely lit hallway. John followed suit and apaologised to the rather surprised looking Mrs. Ellsworth for the early hour and the urgent need for more information on the case.

They were led into a cramped dining room towards the back of the house. When Mrs. Ellsworth switched on the lights, John saw the full extent of the reason for its crowded feeling. Every inch of surface space had been covered in Chinese figurines and other knick-knack. Little buddhas with rosy cheeks in colourful robes. Gambolling kittens, oversized rabbits, trees carved intricately out of several layers of jade and even a little waterfall in a glass box, its floor covered in tiny pebbles and the water being relentlessly pumped up the back to flow back down over the glass pane in front of it.

Sherlock glanced back at John in triumph, while John simply stood with his mouth hanging slightly open, trying to take in the pictures on the wall depicting Chinese gardens, again partly endowed with unexpected waterfalls or even with blinking lights simulating flowers bending in the breeze or birds flapping their wings. It was just too much. Everything seemed to be some shade of pink or turquoise, but essentially the makers of this painfully cheery display had simply used every colour available to them. Extensively.

“How can I help?” The minute Chinese woman drew herself up to her not very considerable height and pulled her dressing gown, a pale pink affaire with what looked like purple peacocks on it, a bit tighter around her midst. Her eyes were wide awake and she pinched her lips in disapproval. Her accent was flawlessly English, betraying her origin just by the exaggerated accuracy with which she spoke.

“It’s about the hold-up at the shop, where your husband was,” Sherlock uncharacteristically hesitated and John knew he was play-acting again, “shot.” He glanced at what might once have been a dining table, but was now just another surface to arrange porcelain puppies and blossoming ceramic cherry trees on, and then picked up one of the tiny porcelain horses prancing on its hind legs, pretending to admire its beauty.

“Would you like to take a seat?” Her voice was somehow akin to the tinkling of a tiny bell.

Sherlock shook his head.

“No, thank you Mrs. Ellsworth. I only have a few more questions and then we won’t disturb you any longer.” John looked over at Sherlock, trying to figure out what kind of a game he was playing now, but at the same time knowing that he would simply go along with everything Sherlock had in mind. A minuscule smile crept onto his lips. He knew that in this Sherlock was the one taking the lead. But he found that with Sherlock, he didn’t mind being led. He couldn’t explain it, but he suddenly felt a powerful surge of pride at being the one to help Sherlock with his investigations, his wing-man, his Robin. Sherlock’s voice cut through his thoughts,

“So you are saying that there were just two men with guns? Might there have been a third waiting outside?” Mingyu Ellsworth shook her birdlike head.

“I wouldn’t know. I wasn’t there you know. Longwei was there. He is my cousin’s eldest and when he came over to England it meant good fortune for us to give him a job. To help him start up.” Sherlock’s eyes rested patiently on this tiny but fierce-looking woman with the sharply cut jet-black bob, giving no sign of suspecting her of lying or concealing any information.

“Of course. Yes. Now how much money exactly did they take?” Sherlock went on, pretending to read from a pocketbook he’d brought. John had never seen him with a pocketbook. Sherlock remembered everything and everyone without the need to write anything down. Well, except for John’s former girlfriend’s. He’d never even bothered to learn their names properly or simply pretended to have forgotten them whenever they’d met. John tried to keep his face impassive because clearly Sherlock was following some kind of plan.

“But I already told the police.” Mrs. Ellsworth’s face was uncomprehending. “1,256.28 Pounds altogether.”

Sherlock pretended to write this down.

“Thank you, Mrs. Ellsworth, I just needed to confirm this with you, just in case we missed something. Now, have you ever had a hold-up before?” Sherlock went on in this vein for a few more minutes, asking pointless and frankly boring questions, not even bothering with his usual snarkiness. John’s thoughts started to drift from the content of the questions to the way Sherlock’s lips moved when he spoke. The way his hair curled at the back of his neck and how much he wanted to run his hand through it. He let the dark and vibrant voice wash over him like a refreshing shower on a hot day.

“John.” Sherlock’s voice was a little edgy now.

“Hm?” John snapped out of his reverie.

“We’re done here.” And Sherlock threw a pointed look at the door.

“Yes, of course, sorry. Erm, good-bye Mrs. Ellsworth.” He bowed slightly, not quite knowing why, except that he knew Chinese people bowed to each other and he didn’t want to seem rude.

They left the house, Sherlock almost bouncing along with joy at his own brilliance.

“Okay what was that all about?” John looked over at Sherlock as soon as they were back in the cab.

“Oh, come on. It did the trick. I just had to know. Of course the police never thought twice about Mr. Ellsworth’s wife running the business for him. Why should they? They didn’t know what we know. That this is a distinctly Chinese affaire we’ve run into. And a very strange one at that.” Sherlock looked over knowinlgy at John, who couldn’t help but frown at Sherlock’s insistence that everything up until now was pretty clear, when really it wasn’t.


	5. The one that was too close to home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sherlock tells John about his time in Italy and reveals more than John has bargained for.

Chapter 5

The one that was too close to home

John’s hands were freezing when they returned to Baker Street. He quickly put the kettle on, without even taking his coat off. After a minute Sherlock joined him in the kitchen, having already discarded his coat, scarf and gloves.

“I’m making tea, do you want a cup?” John busied himself with the mugs and the tea, trying to avoid looking at his flatmate, who had no doubt already sniffed out the fact, that John had taken down the postcard to examine it more closely. Why had Sherlock put it up in the first place? He must have known that John would be curious and might discover its secret message? John’s brain stuttered slightly at the implication. Had Sherlock put it up on purpose? Wishing for John to find out? That wouldn’t leave much room for interpretation. John looked up at Sherlock at the thought and found both their eyes searching in equal measure for the truth behind them.

“I’d like one, thank you.” Sherlock didn’t break the contact and John felt utterly exposed under Sherlock’s gaze, hoping that maybe, finally, Sherlock would see and understand. What he longed but didn’t dare to hope for was reciprocation. In the end John faltered and looked away, angry with himself at having given in.

“You deleted your browser history.” Sherlock stated the fact calmly, but John knew what he was really saying. Knew that he couldn’t hide anything from this man. He would have to take a leap and hope for the best.

“Are you embarrassed? There’s nothing wrong with falling in love with a pretty Italian girl, despite your protestation towards the contrary.” John knew he was testing the waters, trying to make Sherlock admit that there was never any girl. Hoping that his deductions were right and Sherlock had had a fling with a man during his stay in Italy. He felt his throat go dry again at the thought of Sherlock and some nameless Italian in each other’s arms, caressing each other’s skin. Warm hands on Sherlocks bare flesh, heated kisses in an alley with crumbling houses and washing lines strung up high across the street. He knew he shouldn’t think about this, because it would arouse him instantly and Sherlock would see, but the images flashed unbidden through his mind. He turned back towards the kettle, trying to concentrate on the tea.

“What makes you think it was a girl?” Two could play that game. Sherlock leaned back slightly, supporting himself upon the edge of the kitchen table with his hands, exposing his long legs and the exquisite line of his body. John poured the boiling water into the mugs and then picked up both of them, turning around to face Sherlock again, almost spilling the hot liquid in surprise. Sherlock was positively arching towards him and John knew he had to slide back into soldier mode, if he was to remain in control of his senses.

“Wasn’t it?” John desperately willed his body not to shake, as he handed one of the mugs to Sherlock, careful not to touch any part of his fingers in the process.

“No.” Sherlock took the mug from John’s hands, turned around and walked back into the living room. John exhaled shakily. Sherlock had just admitted to him that he’d been in love with a boy. Or hadn’t he? True, it had been more than a decade ago and his negation of the fact that the postcard had been from a girl, didn’t mean that it had been a boy or indeed a man. Or did it? Maybe he’d written the words himself? But he knew Sherlock’s handwriting and this hand’t been it. John’s thoughts felt like the strings on a violin after being plucked. His entire being was vibrating. If Sherlock had indeed once been in love with a man, then why shouldn’t it happen again? And his posture just now had been downright erotic. Then again, Sherlock often did terribly sexy things without even realising. Teasing John out of his mind with a burning look, a stretch of his neck or a turn of his hips. He wouldn’t let Sherlock off the hook this time. He would go into the living room now, sit down in his chair and not be intimidated by this frustrating prick.

“TV?” Sherlock was already reaching for the remote. But instead of putting on the news like they normally would, he opted for a documentary on 17th century merchant venturers. They were both almost silent throughout the start of the programme but John thought he could taste the tension. Then again, maybe it was just him being entirely on edge because of what he’d just heard.

From time to time he shot a quick glance at Sherlock, who sat with his arms leaning casually on the armrests, his left hand dangling off the side facing him and John had to fight the utterly insane impulse to reach out and take Sherlock’s left hand with his right. Nothing sexual, just holding those long fingers in his. A simple gesture. But he knew Sherlock would be shocked and repulsed by it. Then again, once in a while Sherlock would stretch languidly and John got the indistinct feeling Sherlock might be doing it for his benefit. An experiment then? To see how John would react? Or genuinely innocent behaviour not meant to convey any message at all? He didn’t know how to interpret Sherlock. Well, that just meant he’d have to take different road.

“So, not a girl then?”

Sherlock looked at him, his eyes opaque and unreadable.

“No. Not a girl.”

“Tragic love story, was it? All ‘Death in Venice’ and so on?” John was determined to make Sherlock as uncomfortable as possible with this, even if it meant having to fight his own embarrassment at the thought of discussing intimate details of his sex life with his flatmate. His decidedly attractive and all-consuming flatmate. Whom he didn’t lust after. At all.  
Sherlock tried to stare him down. The way he always did, when things were careening out of his comfort zone.

“Quite. Except that I was twenty-three and Andrea was nineteen.” Andrea? What the hell? So it had been a woman after all. But Sherlock had said …

“John.” John looked up from his confusion.

“In Italy Andrea is not a girl’s name.”

“Oh.” John wasn’t sure, but when he looked up it seemed almost as if Sherlock was deliberately teasing him. A smirk he couldn’t hide lingered on his lips. John was not in control of his facial expression anymore. Just as much as he wasn’t in control of this conversation. Damn.

“He was a thief, making his living on the streets of Rome, picking pockets, charming tourists into opening their purses for him in a bid to exchange false lira notes into clinking coins. I almost broke his arm, when he tried to sneak a hand into my backpack to steal my wallet. Oh, he was clever, he tried to compliment me and flirt with me, thinking I’d let him go. I called a carabinieri of course and handed him over. Next day I met him down at the Forum hanging about, smoking. They’d let him go. He was known to be a petty thief but they couldn’t prove anything. I don’t even think they cared. He was sitting atop a wall in his torn shorts and bronzed lithe body. He recognised me at once and trailed after me for a while, offering a cigarette, asking me what I was doing. Suggesting we’d go down to the beach to swim. At first I was sure he’d want to try and steal from me again but when I left the hotel the next day, he was outside, waiting for me and I wondered, if there wasn’t something else. Now, I never considered myself to be particularly good-looking or interesting.”

John let out an involuntary snort. Sherlock pretended he hadn’t heard and went on.

“But he made me feel special. He showed me the secret Rome, the back streets, all the places that tourists didn’t go to. We were sitting down by the river one evening and he just leaned over and kissed me, running his hands underneath my shirt. He was everything if not shy. His other hand went straight to my groin. I knew that I wasn’t attracted to women, I had just always assumed I wasn’t attracted to anyone. But Andrea, he was so brazen, completely confident in his ways. He was everything I wasn’t. He was clever without being educated, brave, bold. He thought himself to be above everyone else, despite being a lowly thief. He spat in the face of everything people said or assumed about him. And just then, he was the most fascinating thing I had ever encountered in this world. Oh, I wasn’t that naïve, I knew he had been working as a call boy, but he wasn’t kissing me for the money. I never gave him any. He found me just as fascinating as I found him, the two of us coming from entirely different ends of the spectrum.

We spent an entire month together, lying in the sun, walking the streets. He taught me how to pickpocket people. We worked the streets together and at night I took him up to my hotel room and he showed me an entirely different world. We made love with the windows thrown wide open in the warm air. We could see the stars through the window, when we lay in each others arms afterwards. When he didn’t turn up one day, I searched all over. Asking his friends, family, even the police. No one had seen him. When I got back to the hotel late at night a postcard was waiting for me. With one sentence written on it. I left for Greece the next day, knowing I’d never see him again.

On my way back to England I stopped in Rome for a day, hoping to find him. To see him just one more time. To understand why. I found some of his friends in their old haunt down by the river and they told me he’d gone back to Sienna, where he was originally from. Things had been getting a bit difficult for him in Rome. He’d upset a fair few people and they’d threatened him. He knew that he had allowed himself to become vulnerable. I had become his pressure point and he then decided to leave without a word. I gathered that his friends were blaming me for his disappearance. I left the next morning and never saw him again.”

Sherlock ended the story with a tight-lipped smile that was more of a grimace. Sentiment. John could feel the hurt radiating off his friend. He sat in his chair, his tea going cold, stunned into utter silence by what he’d just heard.

“You might want to close your mouth now. If there’s nothing else, I’m going out. I have to rake in a few more bits of information.” And with this Sherlock got up, yanked his coat off the hook behind the door and before John could react, strode out of the door and down the stairs.

John sat for another hour, not understanding any of the documentary still bubbling from the TV.


	6. Addictions not to be overcome

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When John and Sherlock bust the opium business they finally realise that they can lose everything except each other.

Chapter 6

Addictions not to be overcome

Later that afternoon Sherlock was suddenly back, alight with the fire of being close on the trail of whoever he was hunting down. John quickly swallowed down the fried rice and vegetable chow mein he was eating, because he knew they’d most likely be off in a blink before he could finish his dinner. And he hated nothing more than going on a chase on an empty stomach, which was something Sherlock constantly teased him about.

“John. Gun. Coat. We have to go.”

John stuffed another spoonful into his mouth and chewed on the way upstairs to get his gun. He could feel the tension of a dangerous case building up again. Sherlock wouldn’t ask him to bring a weapon, if they weren’t on the tail of something big and nasty, with a chance of bullets.  
Minutes later they were in a cab, Sherlock was staring out the window, every muscle in his body tense with anticipation. John didn’t dare ask what was going to happen. Sherlock usually filled him in, if necessary. On the other hand, he liked to go into battle prepared. He glanced across at Sherlock’s statuesque face.  
“John.” Of course Sherlock had been reading his thoughts from his movements alone. Or lack of them.  
“I am going to tell you the whole story afterwards but what you need to know now is that shrewd Mrs. Ellsworth has been running an opium operation from Thailand via China to London for years. The goods were shipped into London in a cunning disguise. The opium was carfully dried and sculpted into thousands of intricate little works of,” Sherlock sighed, a small frustrated sound at the thought of the frankly awful kitsch cluttering up Mrs. Ellsworth’s living room, “... art, just like the ones you saw at her house, which were no doubt serving as cover-ups for the fake ones packed underneath inside the crates. The dried opium was shaped and then covered with enough paint to disguise the material’s true nature. The paint of course could be washed off and the thousands of knick-knacks returned to being just what they always were. Narcotics.” Sherlock smiled a half-smile at the analogy.  
“Mrs. Ellsworth used her husbands newsagents to launder the money and as a headquarters. Now the trouble was that the late Mr. Arthur Ellsworth must have accidentally found out about what had been going on and therefore had had to go. Of course, she had to stage it like a hold-up, so that no one would suspect her of murder. That was one part of the problem. The other part was that the US military had started using drones to photograph opium fields in Thailand from the air and then running raids on them. This had seriously started to endanger her entire operation. She had to find out about where these drones were used and how much ground they covered.  
The hold-up therefore served the other purpose of trading the microchips containing the files on the drone surveillance plans. At first I thought, the cashier had handed the gangsters something together with the money, but it was the other way round. They handed him a bag, no doubt containing the microchips and he simply swapped it behind the counter for an identical one, into which he then very visibly placed the money. Bit more elaborate than strictly necessary, but I suspect Mrs. Ellsworth of having a bit of a melodramatic streak and a definite fondness for a well-staged crime. Of course the two “gangsters” were an English ex-marine and his Thai girlfriend, both now running a very successful drug business here in London. He has the connections over here and she back home.”  
“So, where are we going now?” John’s eyes were glowing with the thrill. Reflecting Sherlock’s brilliance unconcealed. Their eyes met. For a moment there was no answer. Sherlock’s expression stilled. The air between them was suddenly thinning and John found it hard to breathe. He could feel that there were words forming inside his mind. Words he had been longing to say but never dared to. Words that wanted to be said. John’s eyes went down to Sherlock’s lips and then back up again. Rarely had so much been said by so little. John felt his entire body heat up under the scrutinizing glare. His cock growing uncomfortably hard in the compressed space inside his trousers. He felt that a point had been reached, where he didn’t much care anymore about the destruction of their friendship by revealing his feelings. All he knew was that if he didn’t get his lips on this man soon, he’d burst open at the seams. But then Sherlock looked away.  
“East London. “Guangzhou International Freight Forwarding Company.” And with this clipped tidbit of information Sherlock resumed staring out of the window. John nodded almost involuntarily. Not at the information Sherlock had just provided. His head bobbed up and down until he forced it to stop. The message had been quite clear. John had revealed himself to Sherlock and his friend had brushed him off, effectively telling him with one movement that he didn’t reciprocate. John was wondering, if it hadn’t been better not to know. His gaze went out the window on the other side, unseeing. Had he truly misread all the signs? Did he mean so little to the man sitting next to him in the back of the cab, his grey coat gently pushing against John’s legs with every corner they turned. Sherlock shifted slightly and John unintentionally followed the movement out of the corner of his eyes. The cab now drove down into Bow and he knew they’d be arriving at their destination quite soon. Sherlock cleared his throat.  
“Although …,” there was a pause. John didn’t dare to look up, “I have always believed feelings to be detrimental to my deduction skills, I find that … with you around my senses are sharpened and my deductions more … astute.” There was another pause. John kept his gaze firmly on his hands, clasped tightly in his lap. He didn’t dare to interrupt, just in case he wasn’t hearing correctly. Maybe they’d had an accident with the car and he was now lying crushed underneath a lorry, hallucinating with the pain. Sherlock went on, his voice less steady than usual, but tinged dark with emotion.  
“And from the data I gathered during the previous weeks, months rather, I would like you to know that there are no objections on my part.” John knew that this was as much of a declaration as he was ever likely to get. He finally looked up at his friend and the stormy eyes were now clear of the veil that had covered them earlier. John’s gaze went right through them and into the deep well of Sherlock’s feelings. He couldn’t help an involuntary smile.  
“And none on my part either.” John couldn’t hold their gaze anymore. It was overwhelming. Only a few moments ago he had thought that he had ruined the one relationship in this world that meant everything to him. And now he not only realised that he hadn’t, but that his wishes might very well come true. His eyes went back down into his lap.  
The cab slowed noticeably and then stopped. The driver turned to them with a sneer on his face.  
“Oi you two faggots. This is your stop. That’s twenty-six fifty and I don’t take no nine-bob notes, neither.” John sat stunned at the unconcealed rudeness of the cabbie, while Sherlock leaned forward and whispered something throught the glass partition. Suddenly the driver straightened and his face changed from snotty arrogance to humble embarrassment. They got out of the car, Sherlock payed the driver and then turned towards the road leading into the industrial park where the warehouse belonging to the “Guangzhou International Freight Forwarding Company” stood.  
“We are going to have to make an emergency plan.” Sherlock was all business again after the emotional upheaval they’d just shared and John marvelled once more at his ability to switch himself on and off at will.  
“If something goes awry and there is any chance you can get away and get help, then you’re to go.” Sherlock’s eyes were stern, but John simply shook his head.  
“No.”  
“John, I will need you to do this.” They battled silently for a moment trying to stare each other down until, a little surprisingly, Sherlock conceded.  
“Fine. Then we just have to get the job done without getting into trouble. The ex-marine and his girlfriend will most likely have heavy weaponry and they are both army trained, so watch out for that. Mrs. Ellsworth is dangerous, I don’t know how far she’d go if cornered. And I suppose there might be others, helping them.” Sherlock looked up, the sun was slowly sinking below the horizon, daubing the sky purple and pink like a day-old bruise. Sherlock plucked his mobile from his pocket and typed a quick message to Lestrade, telling him to be on stand-by just in case. Then they went in.  
Sherlock was leading them through the dizzying maze of warehouses, all looking more or less the same until he headed to their left, taking a path that led them behind the large buildings, carefully picking their way through discarded rainpipes, bricks, mismatched and warped MDF boards, rusty grates and other debris. He stopped behind one of the large buildings, checking for a way in. His eyes settled on a small window about four feet above their heads.  
“Come on, I’ll help you up.” John immediately leaned his back aginst the wall and folded his fingers in front of him, allowing Sherlock to step into them and then onto his shoulders. Sherlock shrugged off his coat and bundled it up, hiding it underneath a fallen sheet of corrugated iron. Then he placed his hands on John’s shoulders, who braced himself. Sherlock’s foot was in John’s hands but he didn’t put any weight on it. John looked up, wanting to know what was wrong. Then he realised their position. So close. Almost intimate. And his face flamed up again with desire. But now was not the time. They looked at each other once more, confirming what they already knew. When this was over, they would finally give in.  
Sherlock heaved himself up, keeping his hips close to the wall to stabilise himself and managed to reach up to the small window and wrench it open. Putting one foot on John’s shoulder, he heard a groan from underneath and quickly pushed himself up and through the small opening. Once inside, he allowed his eyes to adjust. He was on top of a metal gallery looking down onto the warehouse floor lined with crates and boxes of various shapes and sizes. There seemed to be a broad path leading through the middle of it and along the entire length of the building, which ended in the metal staircase leading up to the metal runway he was standing on. On his left there was a small office bulding sitting on the gallery, like a vigilant bird.  
He made his way down the stairs and towards the front and managed to wangle the door open to let John in. Together they fumbled their way back through the darkening warehouse, as the sun was setting outside. Sherlock reached behind him and John supplied his hand, which was subsequently squeezed once, as they made their way around the crates and up the stairs. Instead of turning towards the small office building, however, Sherlock led them down the other side where they could hide in a small space behind an assembly of wooden slats and metal piping leaning against the wall. From here they would have an ideal view without being seen. They pressed themselves into the small space behind their cover and waited.  
John was leaning back against the wall. He could feel every inch of his upper body heating up by being in contact with Sherlock, who stood one step to the side but facing him, half-covering John’s body with his. John couldn’t think of a time, when he had been less focussed on a case. The minutes dragged by and all he could hear was Sherlock’s breathing beside him and his own heart hammering like a steam engine in his own ears.  
“John.” Sherlock’s voice was so close, it sounded almost as if it was inside his head only. John could feel the breath of his name on his cheek. Caressing his ear like a kiss. He shuddered involuntarily. His face turned towards its source and he needed those eyes on him now. He needed those eyes to burn into his. Nothing else would do. If there was one more day, one more hour without relief, he’d have to do something utterly crazy.

The eyes were on him. Strong and true. The light filtering in from the window was barely enough to make them glint, but John saw. And a breath escaped his lips carrying Sherlock’s name on it like a gust of wind rustling the leaves of a tree.

He swallowed down the next words that wanted to come. He wouldn’t let them. Not just now. Later, maybe. Much later, when he was sure Sherlock wouldn’t scoff. When he could be sure Sherlock would welcome the sentiment. Right now he was sucking in the breath coming from Sherlock’s lips. Warm, rushed and very distinctly Sherlock. John’s very own breath of life. His wrist was on fire where Sherlock had grabbed it and the fire quickly spread up his arms, dispersing through his veins, filling his entire body with a prickly heat that made his throat dry and his cock hard.

Finally, in the dark, he felt lips brushing his. Not quite a kiss. More like a touch. Sherlock’s lips like fingertips exploring the shape of his mouth. He reacted instinctively. Pressing himself more urgently against Sherlock’s fairy tale lips, his hand reaching up to cup Sherlock’s face, teasing his tongue gently along the seam of Sherlock’s mouth to open it. He could feel himself tilting his head further, so as to allow for a deeper kiss, when Sherlock pulled back suddenly. John gazed up, searching Sherlock’s face, worried he’d gone too far. But Sherlock’s eyes were focussed on a spot above his head, his mouth hanging open slightly, listening intently. And then John heard it, too. A key in the lock. The distinct scraping of metal on metal. Faint but audible. Sherlock’s eyes were back on his. He leaned in again, bringing his lips to John’s ear. Another whisper.

“Later.”

A promise and a confirmation. John switched back into soldier mode. His wish granted, he knew they’d have to fight now. Fight for each other and win. Nothing else would do. His senses were alight. He would fight to the death for Sherlock. He knew that much. He just hoped it wouldn’t come to that. The door scraped open and they could hear voices. Three men and two women entered the warehouse. Lights were switched on and Sherlock pressed them even further into the dark corner they were hiding in. All thoughts of sexual contact brushed aside. This was the hunt.

The five figures down below stood in the middle of the path inbetween the mountains of boxes. They were discussing something, then a crate was cracked open with the help of a crowbar and a tiny figurine extracted from it. Two of the men were dressed in sharp business suits, the other one in casual combat fatigues with black boots and a hooded sweater. The women were clearly Mingyu Ellsworth and the Thai woman with the dangly dragon earring. There was more discussion and then the figurine was broken open at the neck, exposing its hidden interior. The material was probed and a tiny sliced scraped off into a glass tube. One of the men withdrew a pipette from his case and allowed for a few drops of liquid to drop into the tube. The other man placed his case upon the opened crate next to him and opened it. John glanced at Sherlock, who already had his mobile phone in his hand and pressed send. Lestrade and his men would be here inside of five minutes. And they had the money and the goods, which should be enough proof to shut down this neat little business.

John drew his gun and stepped out of the shadows.

“Alright.” His voice was low and strong, the timbre commanding. “Now you might want to put that down and put your hands behind your heads.” He made his way slowly down the stairs as the five of them looked up in surprise. One of the besuited men reached into his jacket but John fired a shot that rang through the building and hit the ground a safe ten feet in front of the small group. He walked slowly closer, the gun held aloft.

There was a sound to his right and for a moment John was distracted. He swivelled the gun and then there were two shots. John dropped to the floor. He checked himself mentally. No pain. He wasn’t hit. Unfortunately, his shot had also failed to hit its target. Longwei stepped out of the shadows between the crates and pointed his gun at his head.

“Ni hao.”

John was lying on his belly, unable to see much but he knew what was going to happen next. Another shot would ring out and his world would go dark. He folded his hands behind his head in a gesture of surrender and turned his head sideways, so that his cheek rested on the cold concrete floor.

Suddenly he heard a muffled cry and a heavy object falling to the floor. Sherlock had simply jumped the railing and let himself fall down onto Longwei, crushing him beneath his weight, tumbling to the floor in a heap. The two men in the sharp suits drew their guns simultaneously and even the Thai girl suddenly had her weapon at the ready. John rolled over making a grab for his gun, trying to protect Sherlock who was still winded from the ten foot drop. Shots rang out and he felt them hit the crates around him. He returned as many shots as his magazine held and at the same time grabbed Sherlock by the arm, fiercely dragging the dazed man into cover behind a wall of boxes.

He quickly inserted a fresh clip into his gun and fired another round to keep the others at bay.

“Sherlock.” He panted, already replacing the empty clip with another, his next to last, needing his friend to confirm that he wasn’t hurt.

“’M fine.” Sherlock shifted himself up against the crate. John fired another two shots around the corner and down the warehouse. Suddenly bright lights flammed up, illuminating the entrance from the outside. Two policemen were already breaking down the door, thereby effectively breaking any kind of resistance from the drug dealers. They were quickly overcome and easily arrested. Lestrade was utterly pleased for once, unable to find fault with either their complete recklessness or their frankly suicidal approach to battling organised crime.

Sherlock had mostly recovered from his deathdefying stunt and went outside and around the building to retrieve his coat. Then he made his excuses to Lestrade and he and John left with only the most cursory of thanks to their saviours. The way back up through the dark industrial park and up to the main road seemed endless. John’s entire being twitched. He had never been this nervous. Sherlock had brushed Lestrade off, who had insisted they come in for their statements straightaway and put him off until tomorrow. This meant that he wanted to get back home as quickly as possible, too. When they reached the main road, John held his hand up for a cab, but Sherlock grabbed at his arm and pushed it back down.

“No.”

John looked at his friend, incomprehending.

“Not yet.” Sherlock’s eyes were on his and the fire they had held earlier was back. John stood unmoving until he felt a bare hand on his cheek caressing it gently. His eyes slid closed. They were on the main road. True it was late and dark but there were still people walking back home from the pub or the theatre. Not exactly a private place.

John caught himself before a soft moan could escape his lips. His eyes re-opened, unsure of what to do next. But looking at the earnest, captivating face in front of him, John found himself not caring anymore. Their lips met without prior warning. Desperately this time. Hungry from having had to hold back. Relieved from having survived their latest scrape. Their mouths opening instinctively, tongues rolling against each other like waves upon the shore. John’s hands were gripping Sherlock’s coat at the sides, squeezing it for dear life. Pulling him close. Names whispered inbetween kisses. Assurances. We belong. I know. Then stop. Before it got too much. Aware of people looking at them askance.

Sherlock’s hand went up for a cab without his gaze leaving John’s. A hand that never left John’s lower arm for the entire silent journey. They couldn’t speak. There was too much to say. Toppling out of the cab in front of 221B, John hanging back to pay the driver. Sherlock already at the door unlocking it. Unlocking their new home for the first time. The new home, where they would be lovers rather than flatmates. Coats were flung across the bannister, shoes pounding the stairs as they ran up to their living room. They’d apologise to Mrs Hudson later. And then their door was shut. The world seemed to stop. They stared at each other, standing five feet apart. Then in two strides Sherlock was closing the gap pressing his forehead against John’s, aligning their bridge of their noses, his hand on the nape of John’s neck, pressing him close. Another stop. Putting the world on hold. Then hurried breaths and hands fumbling under jumpers and into shirts. More kisses. Not chaste this time. Urgent with need and fierce in their message.

“I want you.” The words are out of Sherlock’s mouth before he can stop them.

“Good.” John’s eyes are alight at the implication. Sherlock wanted him. This beautiful, complicated, frustrating, brilliant, inexplicable man.

Sherlock stops again. Stunned for a moment. He had thought John would want to take him, but never allow himself to be taken. The fire flares up again. Even stronger this time. As if caught by a sudden gust of wind, feeding it. Sherlock feels himself grow even harder.

He hadn’t been afflicted with this irritating bodily reaction for a long time. But now. Well, if he was honest he’d been having the dreams again ever since his fall. Long distant memories of his adolescence, where he’d woken up with his underwear stuck to his body. Nighttime hauntings he’d tried to avoid, but couldn’t. The years after the fall had brought them back. Thoughts of John. Need. Sometimes he’d given in, slipped a hand past the waistband of his pyjamas. Bit his lip so as not to cry out. Images rushing through his head like a waterfall. John in his striped shirt. John making tea. Handing the cup to him. John in his chair, reading. Those strong, patient eyes on his own.

And after his return the dreams had turned into needles, poking him at every turn. Having to force himself not to reach out and take John’s hand, hanging off the side of the armrest when they were watching television together. Not allowing their fingers to brush, when he took a cup of tea on a saucer out of John’s hand. Not slipping a hand underneath the striped shirts and revelling in the beautifully soft skin underneath. Everytime John came out of the bathroom after having a shower and wearing nothing but pants and a bathrobe, he’d pretended to be intently staring at something – anything - through the binocular eyepiece of his microscope.

But now his hands were underneath that shirt. Caressing the smooth skin on John’s back, while his lips were bruised from kissing. And John’s hands were exploring his own skin, slipping underneath the waistband of his trousers and onto his firm cheeks. Pushing him against his own body, pressing their erections together. He couldn’t help but thrust. The fabric still covering them enhancing the friction. Still kissing as if the other was the oxygen in a nitrogen world, their hips ground together in confirmation of what was going to happen next, of what had to happen if they weren’t going to go insane.

When Sherlock felt as if he was about to spill himself into his pants like a teenager, he pushed them apart. His grip on John’s wrist like a vice, he pulled the other man towards his bedroom, which might have just become their bedroom. John stumbled slightly, not from the unexpected movement, but from his legs having lost their will to stand up straight.

Sherlock flicked on the light and they stood in front of his bed, panting as if from a chase. But this time the chase had been run entirely in their heads and their hearts and now they were anxious to cross the finishing line, to tear the banner waiting patiently. As if in a bad Western they both knew that the shoot-out would start as soon as the first man drew.

Sherlock’s hands went up to the top button of his dress shirt and undid it. As soon as John caught the movement, he ripped his jumper over his head, the t-shirt coming off in the process. When he re-emerged semi-naked from its depths, Sherlock was already pushing his trousers down, sliding off his still laced-up shoes unceremoniously with his feet.

John’s first touch of Sherlock’s naked skin was hesitant, almost shy. A lull in the intense fire of their lust. The eye of the tornado. His fingertips barely daring to make contact with the alabaster skin on Sherlock’s chest, stroking along and down it like a kitten testing water for the first time. Then Sherlock took his hand and John’s eyes re-focussed. Sherlock was looking at him intently and then led his hand down his body to cover the aching erection in his briefs.

John drew in a sharp breath upon contact and felt his own cock twitch in his pants. His face was burning up at the thought of how much he was turned on by this beautiful, impossible man now urgently pressing both their hands up and down his still fabric-covered shaft. John used his free hand to grab Sherlock round the middle and press them both together again. Right now, it didn’t matter to him whether he was going to take or be taken, all he wanted was for both of them to shout each other’s name in a moment of complete and utter need.

Sherlock extracted his hand from their joint grip on his cock and opened John’s trousers, sliding them down his legs. Thereby gently stroking John’s thighs, knees and calves. Bringing his head dangerously close to John’s own erection, making John grip Sherlock’s hair involuntarily, almost but not quite pushing him into his groin.

Sherlock stopped his movements and looked up at him, already half crouching on the floor. Just the right height to be level with John’s erection. John nodded. Once. Sherlock understood. If he took John in his mouth now, then it was clear that Sherlock would subsequently be the one to top first tonight. The implications of this made his cock strain hungrily against the fabric of his briefs. His hands hooked into the elastic of John’s pants and carefully pulled them outwards and downwards over his jutting cock. John gasped audibly at the sensation of Sherlock sliding his pants down his legs. He managed to step out of them without falling over from the sheer intensity of what he knew was going to happen next.

He was sure he’d come the instant Sherlock touched him. His breathing came in irregular gasps, stopping and starting as if he was stepping into an ice-cold shower. One more look from Sherlock, searching John’s eyes for confirmationa and the mouth was on him. Tentatively at first. Just spanning the perimeter of John’s glans, slowly taking in his already leaking tip. Swirling his tongue around it and down the sensitive underside. Then slowly working his way further downwards with each bob of the head. John’s head falling back out of its own accord, mouth opening wide.

“Oh God, Sherlock.”

His hands went into the curly hair in front of him and he couldn’t stop himself from accentuating Sherlock’s every move with a gentle push. Sherlock reached between John’s legs and started stroking his balls in rhythm with his movements, his other hand circling the base of John’s erection adding to the sensation. John started thrusting involuntarily and looking down onto the sight of the kneeling Sherlock in front of him, knew he was going to come sooner rather than later. Then Sherlock stopped. His mouth left John’s prick with a frustrating feeling of abandon.

“No. John. I want you to come inside of me. I want to feel you in me.”

John pushed Sherlock on the bed without a word. If he was going to come inside of Sherlock he would have to do it soon, because otherwise he was just going to come into thin air, because of all the tension that he’d been building up.

“I’ve got nothing to …” John started

Sherlock turned around and in a breathstoppingly erotic movement leaned all the way across the bed to reach for the bedside table on the other side, pulling a bottle of lubricant and an unopened box of condoms from the top drawer. John almost came at the sight of it. He was going to fuck Sherlock Holmes tonight and he hadn’t even known how much he wanted to until now. Oh yes, he’d fantasized about it but nothing had prepared him for the sight of this gorgeous man now standing in front of him tearing open a box that might as well contain John’s entire life.

Then he handed the bottle to John and started slipping his briefs down his thighs and stepping out of them before sitting down on the bed, while John tried to cover himself and his fingers with lubricant without coming in the process. Sherlock lay back on top of the covers, exposing the entire pale expanse of his naked body. His prick bobbing full and hot against his hipbone. John stopped for a second to admire the beauty before him and then crawled on top of Sherlock brushing the last of his shyness and inhibitions aside.

Their mouths met again in hungry kisses and John could feel himself reaching around Sherlock’s back to slide his fingers between his cheeks, slicking along the cleft towards the tight entrance. Sherlock rolled sideways towards John lifting one hip and angling his leg a little, allowing for easier access and John pressed his lubricated finger against the small opening. Circling it gently before slowly pushing inside. Sherlock gasped at the sensation of the slick finger breaching him, hardly able to process the sensation of John’s finger thrusting into him, producing the keenest sensation of desire he’d ever felt.

“Oh God, John, I … I’m just … I want this so much.” Sherlock’s head pushed back into the pillows, his body arching with need. John almost came from the sight of Sherlock squirming beneath him as he fucked him with his finger.

“Sherlock, if you don’t stop me, I’m going to spill myself inside of you tonight.”

“Yes. I want that. Oh fuck, I want that so much, John.”

John added a second finger, stretching Sherlock further, preparing him carefully. John wasn’t rough, but he wasn’t shy, as he pushed two fingers past the muscled opening and slid deep inside as far as it would go. He repeated this motion several times, getting used to the feeling and more importantly allowing Sherlock to get used to it. Then he added a third finger, gently stretching the tight hole.

By now Sherlock was already leaking at the top of his prick and John knew that neither of them would last much longer.

“I can’t … I need …” Sherlock had lost his usual cockiness and his eyes were wide with lust. He lifted his head slightly and looked directly into John’s eyes.

“Get the fuck in there now.” Ah, welcome back again.

Sherlock shoved both his pillows underneath his hips to prop himself up a bit. John pulled his fingers out slowly and then held his aching cock in place against the small opening. How would he ever fit in there? But when he looked up at Sherlock, he just nodded, and John pressed on. Gently slipping just the head inside the hot tightness, waiting for Sherlock to adjust to the feeling.

“Fuck, that’s ow.”

“Do you want me to stop?” John didn’t seriously think he could, but wanted to give Sherlock at least a chance to decide.

“No, good lord no. I’m just trying to get the hang of it.”

“You can tell me to stop anytime, you know that”  
.  
“Yes. Now push you halfwit.” John let it this insult slide, mainly due to the fact that there were now small explosions detonating all over his body, almost effectively fusing him. Then John slowly allowed himself to push further forward. Sliding back and forth in tiny steps. Rocking his hips in minuscule movements, which nevertheless drew hisses and curses from Sherlock’s lips.

It was becoming more and more difficult for John to not just thrust into this beautiful man lying beneath him. He forced himself to go slow, rocking gently back and forth until he was finally fully embedded. There he stopped for a moment.

“Are you alright?”

Sherlock nodded.

“Better than. Feels incredible. Now move.”

And John drew back and thrust slowly back in once. Oh, the pleasure pain of it. John moaned with the feeling this produced. A deep throated moan that made his entire body shudder. He wanted so much to simply let loose and pound into his friend, but held himself back, knowing how important it was to go slow, so that Sherlock wouldn’t hurt too much after and would be up for doing this again sometime. Sometime soon.

“Touch yourself.” John’s voice was rolling over Sherlock’s body. His friend complied with the request immediately and wrapped a hand around his jutting prick, holding it tight at first  
and then starting to move up and down in time with John’s thrusts.

John looked from Sherlock’s face etched with utter pleasure down his own body, watching his prick sliding in and out of Sherlock’s arse and was almost overwhelmed with lust. Never would he have thought that he might find another man this sexy and never would he have thought that he could feel such a powerful need to take another man in this way.

But then again, Sherlock wasn’t just any other man. He was the man who made him feel alive, who challenged him daily, whom he could talk to freely and without restraint. The man who looked at him with those fierce, burning eyes of his, only to turn into a misanthropic egotist the next minute and punch him in the face with a rude comment. Sherlock who had been dominating his waking and sleeping hours for more than a few years now. And finally here he was, writhing in pleasure benath him, trying to meet his thrusts with his hips. And then he could feel it. He was going to come. It started in the back of his head and rushed through his entire body setting him on fire.

“Oh God Sherlock, I’m going to come.”

“Yes, John. Come. Come for me. I want you to empty yourself inside of me. Come on. Hard.” And Sherlock sped up the movements on his own erection, trying to catch up with John’s orgasm.

Seeing this, John lost all control and simply thrust uninhibitedly until he felt his entire body clench, burying himself as deep as he could inside the body underneath him and felt himself shudder with pleasure, as they both arched of the bed slightly.

John only managed a strangled groan, pressing the air out of his lungs and then sucking it in again with a great gasp.

“Ah, fuck, Sherlock.” Was probably what he’d meant to say, but only half the letters made it past his lips.

“Oh God, I’m so utterly in love with you.” John finally let the words tumble out of his mouth not even trying to hold back.

Seeing his friend come undone like this, sliced through Sherlock like a sword. He knew he wasn’t quite there yet, but his hand flicked up and down his shaft faster now and the images of John’s face contracting in pure pleasure, quickly brought him to the edge as well.

“Oh God, John. I’m going to fuck you so hard.”

John was still panting from his own orgasm but he wanted Sherlock to know how much he wanted this to happen. Bringing his lips up to Sherlock’s ear, he whispered.

“I am yours to do as you please.”

And Sherlock came with a drawn out, half strangled fuck on his lips.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Right, this is it. My first smutty thing. 
> 
> Written for Mid0nz’s BBC Sherlock Writing Contest!
> 
> I hope you enjoyed!


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